The Man of Genius

by Cesare Lombroso

“1820, 31 March.—At this time of the year it always happens to me that body and mind are alike heavy; I have the consciousness of my degradation....

“1821, May.—All this month I am sad, and yield to external causes like a marionette....

“21 October.—I feel myself newborn. I was returning to work, but the weather has changed; the wind has turned to the south; it is strong, and I am another man. I feel inert, with a distaste for work, and inclined to those sad and melancholy fantasies which are always so fatal to me....”

Alfieri wrote, “I compare myself to a barometer. I have always experienced more or less facility in writing, according to the weight of the air; absolute stupidity in the great solstitial and equinoxial winds, infinitely less perspicacity in the evening than in the morning, and a much greater aptness for creation in the middle of the winter or of summer than in the intermediate seasons. This has made me humble, as I am convinced that at these times I have had no power to do otherwise.” Monod says that the phases of Michelet’s intellectual life followed the course of the seasons.[189] Poushkin’s poetic inspiration was greatest during dark and stormy nights.

We catch a glimpse in these facts of an appreciable influence of barometrical conditions upon men of genius as upon the insane.

Heat.—Thermometrical influence is much clearer and more evident. Napoleon, who defined man as “a product of the physical atmosphere and the moral atmosphere,” and who suffered from the faintest wind, loved heat so much that he would have fires even in July. Voltaire and Buffon had their studies warmed throughout the year. Rousseau said that the action of the sun in the dog-days aided him to compose, and he allowed the rays of the mid-day sun to fall on his head. Byron said that he feared cold as much as a gazelle. Heine wrote in one of his letters, “It snows; I have little fire in the room, and my letter is cold.” Spallanzani, in the Ionian Islands, found himself able to study for three times as many hours as in misty Pavia.[190] Leopardi confesses in his letters, “My temperament is inimical to cold. I wait and invoke the reign of Ormuzd.” Giusti wrote in the spring, “Inspiration is becoming favourable.... If spring aids me as in all other things....”[191] Paisiello could only compose beneath six quilts in the summer and nine in the winter. Similar facts are told of Varillas, Méry, and Arnaud. Sylvester tells how, when on board the Invicta, beneath the vivifying rays of a powerful sun, the method of resolving a multiple equation occurred to him, and he succeeded, without pen or pencil.[192] Lesage, in his old age, became animated as the sun advanced in the meridian, gradually gaining his imaginative power, together with his cheerfulness; as the day declined, his mental activity gradually diminished, until he fell into a lethargy, which lasted to the following day.[193]

Giordani could only compose in the sun, or in the presence of abundant light and great heat.[194] Foscolo wrote in November: “I keep near the fire; my friends laugh at me, but I am seeking to give my members heat which my heart will concentrate and sublime within.”[195] And in December he writes: “My natural infirmity, the fear of cold, has constrained me to live near the fire, and the fire has inflamed my eyelids.” Milton confessed in his Latin elegies that in winter his muse was sterile; he could only write from the spring equinox to that of autumn. In a letter he complains of the cold of 1678, and fears that, if it lasts, it will hinder the free development of his imagination. Dr. Johnson, who tells us this in his Life of Milton, may be believed on this point, for imagination never smiled upon him, only the cold and tranquil intelligence of criticism, and he adds the commentary that all this must be the result of eccentricity of character, he, Johnson, never having experienced any effects from the variations of the weather. Poushkin often said that he found himself most disposed to composition in autumn; the brilliant spring sunshine produced on him an impression of melancholy. Salvator Rosa laughed in youth, as Lady Morgan tells us in her Life, at the pretended influence of the weather on works of genius; but in old age he became incapable of painting or thinking, almost of living, except in the heat of spring. In reading Schiller’s correspondence with Goethe one is struck by the singular influence which the gentle and imaginative poet attributed to the weather. In November, 1817, he wrote: “In these sad days, beneath this leaden sky, I have need of all my elasticity to feel alive, and do not yet feel capable of serious work.” And in December: “I am going back to work, but the weather is so dull that it is impossible to preserve the lucidity of the soul.” In July, 1818: “Thanks to the fine weather I am better; the lyric inspiration, which obeys the will less than any other, does not delay.” In December he complains that the necessity of completing Wallenstein unfortunately coincides with an unfavourable period of the year, “so that,” he writes, “I am obliged to use all my strength to preserve mental clearness.” And in May, 1799: “I hope to make progress in my work if the weather continues fine.”

All these examples allow us to suspect, with some probability, that heat, with rare exceptions, aids in the productions of genius, as it aids in vegetation, and also aids, unfortunately, in the stimulation of mania.

If historians, who have squandered so much time and so many volumes in detailing minutely to us the most shameless exploits of kings, had sought with as much care the memorable epoch in which a great discovery or a masterpiece of art was conceived, they would no doubt have found that the hottest months and days have always been most fruitful for genius, as for nature generally.

Let us endeavour to find more precise proofs of this little-suspected influence.